The specification relates to on-demand street lighting for a connected vehicle.
Many fatal accidents occur at night. Fatal crashes are four times higher at night than during the day. The major cause of these nighttime fatal accidents is limited visibility of objects such as other vehicles and pedestrians. Proper street lighting can substantially reduce fatalities and crashes with pedestrians and other vehicles. Studies have shown that proper street lighting can substantially reduce fatalities and crashes with pedestrians and lighted intersections and highways have fewer crashes than their unit counterparts.
However, it is not economically efficient to turn on the street lights throughout the night due to significant energy cost. In United States, studies indicate that municipal street lighting can represent from 5% to over 60% of a municipal government's electric bill depending on the municipality's size, the services it offers, and the efficiency of its public lighting. In India, one study indicates that 17% of a municipality's total annual bill is due to street lighting.
Typically, a rural or suburban area has very low traffic at night (e.g., midnight to 4:00 AM), so it is not efficient to turn on streetlights throughout the entire night.